Co-ordinators

IOP's international co-ordinators are volunteer members working on capacity building projects in the developing world supported by the Institute.

Prof. Richard de Grijs
IOP International co-ordinator, China

Richard holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. After postdoctoral research fellowships at the Universities of Virginia (US) and Cambridge, he spent nearly seven years as a member of staff at the University of Sheffield. Following intense collaboration with Chinese colleagues since 2002 and an honorary post as adjunct professor at the National Astronomical Observatories of China since 2005, he now holds a full-time professorship at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, an international research institute associated with Peking University in Beijing. In addition to his scientific research achievements, he is heavily involved in making science accessible to the general public through numerous public-outreach engagements.

Christine Cleave
IOP International co-ordinator, Ethiopia

Dr Bill Poole
IOP International co-ordinator, Ethiopia

After an initial visit to Addis Ababa during October 2007, Bill is active in assisting the Institute in setting up support to schools in Ethiopia including teacher training and provision of equipment and resources. The model successfully used in Rwanda, provides the basis for the Ethiopian development work. Bill has 30 years experience in industry and works for DeltaRail Group in Derby as a consultant in wheel-rail contact mechanics and adhesion.

Laurie Mansfield
IOP International co-ordinator, The Gambia

Laurie taught physics for 35 years in a variety of English schools, for the last 21 years as Director of Workington Sixth Form Centre. He is an experienced A level and GCSE examiner, with an interest and involvement in curriculum development and assessment. He is making his first, exploratory visit to The Gambia in April 2011.

Roger Green
IOP international co-ordinator, Ghana

Head of Physics at City and Islington Sixth Form College for 20 years. After retirement from teaching was employed as a consultant by Internation Training and Education Consultancy (ITEC) responsible for teaching of physics teachers in Ghana 2008/9. From Nov 2009 to Nov 2010 was seconded to the Ghana Education Service as a science education consultant.

Anna-Ulla Jansson
IOP International co-ordinator, Malawi

After completing her PGCE in combined sciences at the University of Bristol - during which she participated in a teaching trip to The Gambia - Anna has worked for IOP Publishing. She is working with fellow co-ordinators Eileen Nugent, Kristin Lohwasser and Olivia Roche in preparing physics workshops for teachers in northern Malawi.

Kristin Lohwasser
IOP International co-ordinator, Malawi

Kristin is a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford and is assisting fellow IOP co-ordinator, Eileen Nugent in putting together the workshop, finding teaching materials and inexpensive physics experiments for usage in Malawi. 

Eileen Nugent
IOP co-ordinator, Malawi

Eileen is a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford and is working together with a Charity called Ripple Africa (based at Mwaya beach in the Nkata bay region of Malawi) to provide physics and mathematics teaching workshops for the local schools. 

Olivia Roche
IOP International co-ordinator, Malawi

Olivia Roche joined the Institute of Physics Publishing after completing a DPhil in Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Oxford in 2009. She is the publisher of Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics. She started work on the Malawi Project in 2010 and is currently focussing on writing a lab manual for physics teachers in Malawi along with the other co-ordinators: Eileen, Kristin and Anna.

Mike Vella
IOP International co-ordinator, Rwanda

Ellie Kirby
IOP International co-ordinator, Rwanda

Ellie has enjoyed teaching physics in York and Leeds for 6 years. She has also taught Matriculation Physics in Cape Town. Working with fellow co-ordinator, Mike Vella, she is hoping to continue a successful project in Kigali, Rwanda which was set up 6 years ago by David Richardson. So far the project has included setting up a workshop to make practical equipment, teacher training workshops and sharing ideas with Rwandan schools. 

Joe Brock
IOP International co-ordinator, Tanzania

Joe Brock has 20 years teaching experience in both comprehensive schools and sixth form colleges but was originally trained as an Electronics engineer working in the process control and defence industries. Joe, whose subject specialisms are in Physics and Electronics, is Head of Faculty for Science and Maths at the College of Richard Collyer.

The sixth form college gained Beacon status for Science in 2006 part of which involved training non specialist Physics teachers to teach Physics. Joe received the Industrial Trust Award in 2007 and a National Teaching Award in 2008 both in recognition for his work with industry - college links. Joe has written a number of training books including ‘How to Teach Waves’ and ‘GCSE Electronics’ and has worked with Nelson Thornes in producing electronic resources for A level Electronics. Following work in The Gambia with the charity PAGEANT Joe has developed a project that shows how to teach practical physics in any location using everyday items. The book ‘How to Teach Physics Anywhere’ to support the project is now in its third edition. Joe coordinates the Institute of Physics project in Tanzania which is now in its second year.

James Barr
IOP International co-ordinator, Uganda

Following an 8 year career as a pilot in the British Army, James began teaching physics at Highgate School, London, in 2009. He is working with a school in south west Uganda to establish a resource centre which will provide many other schools within the local area with access to physics equipment. The centre already offers courses for teachers on how best to use apparatus and gives guidance and support on the inclusion of exciting, challenging but achievable practical physics in their lessons.

Stephen Wright
IOP International co-ordinator, Uganda

Stephen is a retired physics teacher having taught at eight very different institutions. He particularly enjoyed developing new experiments for school use including a Nernst calorimeter, an apparatus for Coulomb's law, several versions of a single crystal furnace and a copy of the Royal Institution wave machine. 

Interested in becoming an IOP International co-ordinator?
Please contact international@iop.org.